UK/Turkey: Roj Women lobbying on behalf of Kurdish women living in Turkey
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Roj Women Roj Women’s Association has just published its last Annual Activities Report that maps out the organization’s campaigning and community work from April 2010 until March 2011. Field research in Kurdish regions of the world, community research among the Kurdish Diaspora, lobbying meetings at British, European and United Nations forums, grassroots groups capacity-building, seminars for university students and communities, to mention a few, are the activities that materialize a wider strategy that seeks to improve the lives of women in Kurdish regions and communities of the world.
These are some of the outputs and achievements:
• A shadow report for the review of the Turkish Government under the UN International Convention against Torture (CAT) submitted in November 2010. Crucially, the CAT Committee recognized violence against women perpetrated by State actors as a differentiated type of violence from that perpetrated by relatives and the community in its Concluding Observations and, thus, endorsed Roj Women’s Association’s demands to tackle this hideous abuse.
• A shadow report for the review of the Turkish Government under the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) submitted in March 2011. Roj Women’s Association sent a delegation of Kurdish women to lobby members of the ESCR Committee in May. The delegation succeeded in bringing the specific concerns of Kurdish women to the attention of the meeting and their recommendations were included in the final Concluding Observations.
• Several meetings with members of the European Parliament for London and with members of relevant Committees such as the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary
Committee and the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee took place to ensure the specific plight of Kurdish women is considered and addressed in their actions.
• An amendment to the a draft motion for a resolution on Turkey’s 2010 progress report, tabled by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament,
was submitted to reflect Roj Women’s demands to address the shortcomings
of Turkish policies to tackle violence against women.
Roj Women’s Association strives to further the rights and to expand the opportunities available to Kurdish women by means of drawing attention to the factors that shape their struggle and of advocating for the necessary changes to overcome them.
